Time Warner to stop airing Viacom stations at 12:01 January 1st

[Noop]

Originally Posted by Crapshoot

Is there anyone who disagrees with that?

Comcast is beyond suck at this point. I swear they hire people who don't understand English or seems to think having an attitude with me will fix my problem.

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

From a cable companies standpoint they own the cable wires that run through your neighborhood.

From a home ownership standpoint I wouldn't really want to see even more cables ran through my backyard on the poles there (aerial).

From a cities standpoint they think they should be in charge of who has access to easements in their municipality.

Of course lots of it comes down to cities, counties, and states that have signed exclusive franchise agreements with utility companies (water, gas, electricity, cable, phone, etc), and everyone is at fault for that.

Irrelevant. They have to give access over the wires to competing cable companies and I for one wouldn't guve a shit about having 1 more line running into the house if it meant a reduction in cable rates due to actually having competition

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by Chubby

Irrelevant. They have to give access over the wires to competing cable companies and I for one wouldn't guve a shit about having 1 more line running into the house if it meant a reduction in cable rates due to actually having competition

Do you realize that if cable companies had to give access over their wires to competing cable companies the # of channels you get would be significantly reduced? This is because every cable company out there is already using all of the frequency spectrum that their cable plant can push, having another cable company on the same lines would require double the amount of bandwidth. Of course I'm speaking from my knowledge and I'm not familiar with any neighborhoods that have competing cable companies. If it was possible to have competition without more cables running through my city I'd be all for it, I'm fine with more competition, because that means there is also competition for my services...

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Noop

Comcast is beyond suck at this point. I swear they hire people who don't understand English or seems to think having an attitude with me will fix my problem.

I was not happy when I had Comcast, but when I bought my house a year and a half ago or so and ended up with Charter cable, I was wishing I had Comcast back. For everyone who is stuck with Comcast and declares how bad it is, Charter is far worse. Less programming options, Older firmware on devices (meaning less options that you have available), and their tech support is worse then Comcast (Comcast was just usually ignorant while Charter tech support downright lied about things and were misleading which I find far worse).

People complain about Comcast's internet policies or the direction they are going with some of their billing, but at least I never had any serious issues with Comcast that lasted longer than a few hours. Charter routinely had routers on their networks with bad packetloss (where web browsing would work but nothing like IPSEC tunnels or anything dependent on a decent connection) and couldn't even figure out what the problem was for six+ months.

The very day that Verizon rolled FIOS out to my neighborhood, I signed up and had an install within the week done. Anyone who is lucky enough to have Verizon FIOS are spoiled, easily the best available cable option that I have ever had.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

Do you realize that if cable companies had to give access over their wires to competing cable companies the # of channels you get would be significantly reduced? This is because every cable company out there is already using all of the frequency spectrum that their cable plant can push, having another cable company on the same lines would require double the amount of bandwidth. Of course I'm speaking from my knowledge and I'm not familiar with any neighborhoods that have competing cable companies. If it was possible to have competition without more cables running through my city I'd be all for it, I'm fine with more competition, because that means there is also competition for my services...

In my area there was no problem with Verizon running new fiber out to operate alongside Charter cable. Perhaps it was because they were doing that run to update phone lines anyways, so they replaced their phone with Phone/internet/TV though.

The only hurdle as far as I have heard for Verizon rolling out to more of Massachusetts is many of the local towns get greedy and demand way too much from Verizon to roll out their services to an area that might not be much more than break even at best. So from what I could tell they were trying to get authority from the state to roll it out at a state level everywhere, but I guess ran into legal hurdles where it was not the state's jurisdiction. (or something like that).

As best I can tell, the people that a community should complain to if they are not happy with the local cable provider's services is their local town government. However I doubt much ever comes from that at all ever.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by Alan T

In my area there was no problem with Verizon running new fiber out to operate alongside Charter cable. Perhaps it was because they were doing that run to update phone lines anyways, so they replaced their phone with Phone/internet/TV though.

The only hurdle as far as I have heard for Verizon rolling out to more of Massachusetts is many of the local towns get greedy and demand way too much from Verizon to roll out their services to an area that might not be much more than break even at best. So from what I could tell they were trying to get authority from the state to roll it out at a state level everywhere, but I guess ran into legal hurdles where it was not the state's jurisdiction. (or something like that).

As best I can tell, the people that a community should complain to if they are not happy with the local cable provider's services is their local town government. However I doubt much ever comes from that at all ever.

Oh yeah, they have been rolling out here throughout the area. The only problem we have run into is that Verizon was using contractors and they have a tendency to sometimes cut trunk lines that are running to neighborhoods when they are doing their plant extensions.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

Just to add to my defense of Time Warner Cable. I really think that as employees we here at TWC in Los Angeles do a lot of things to try and help our customers, as long as the customers requests are reasonable. I've done the customer service thing, I did technical support here for 8 years and went above and beyond for many a customer, especially when I know we were in the fault. There were times when we had free time in my old department and we would cruise message boards and look for people having issues and attempt to help them. Heck I still do this sometimes today. In the past year I have contacted Consumerist to get a hold of a customer in our area that had posted a complaint and I got him in touch with the appropriate department to resolve his issue, I stayed in touch with him through the process to make sure it was fully resolved. On another occasion the guy that writes for 6-4-2 which is a Dodgers/Angels blog was complaining about TWC and I contacted him and work with our Office of the President to answer his questions and try and resolve those problems that we had control over. Even though I'm not in the "customer service" field at my company any more, I do look at helping customers that I see that had a real problem and trying to get it solved. This is because I take pride in my job and I have pride in what my fellow employees do for our customers and for our community (such as offered countless hours of assistance after major emergencies in our communities, as well as volunteering for numerous charity organizations. So if I'm going to come off as some quasi paid ra ra guy for my company so be it. I've seen it from the front lines what we do here.

When you get to the correct people, they can be pretty good.

I have TWC right now because they called me after noticing I had a shunt on my line to block TV (since they cleverly install a device that breaks down every couple of years and screws up my internet service to make sure I don't somehow get a TV signal in the house...) to see if I wanted to try them out. I'd been thinking of this because of local channel support, as I was getting them OTA and DirecTV wanted to charge me $400 to upgrade to MPEG-4 at the time (after paying $400 to go HD and then another $300 to get an HD-DVR and still not getting all the HD I had been originally promised).

So they gave me a 60-day free trial to check it out alongside DirecTV and then decide which one I wanted to keep.

Except of course that the paperwork wasn't quite right, and the guy that came out to do the install was a contractor who wanted money up front, and there was no mention of running a line to my TV (since the interior house wiring for this sucked, and all I really had were the DirecTV lines).

Since this is what I had been afraid of, I just gave up right there. Then a local VP called, offered to send out his best crew to get the install done, and made sure I was taken care of. And we still thought long and hard because the first line of support was exactly why we had DirecTV in the first place.

To his credit he did make sure everything was done right, and took care of at least one other billing glitch along the way.

Then they rolled out Navigator and almost lost us again since the first box that got it loved to decide it didn't want to record some things. We had to reboot it every other night to keep it working. They got a functional version of the software out just in time.

But of course the real question is, why do I have to get to a VP to get an install done right?

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Then they rolled out Navigator and almost lost us again since the first box that got it loved to decide it didn't want to record some things. We had to reboot it every other night to keep it working. They got a functional version of the software out just in time.

But of course the real question is, why do I have to get to a VP to get an install done right?

We haven't launched Navigator here yet (thank god) but it's only like a month away.

As for why it took a VP, beats me, it's policy here that we collect CODs for 1st month on every install, so unsure why the CSR wouldn't have notified you of that. The trap that you had on your line shouldn't fail and there is no conspiracy that makes it fail every so often, but I know you were just kidding around on that. Our billing system is extremely complex, so much so that I do everything I can to stay away from it, and I'm a smart guy that understands things easily. As for running a line, what did you expect them to do beam it to you wirelessly?

[-apoc-]

I love TWC/Brighthouse. In the 6+ years that I have had them I have rarely encountered any problems. 2 Internet lags at 2 different places caused by faulty/aging routers(or whatever their term for them is) in the neighborhood that were fixed within a week and the upgrade to the new DVR operating system which really blow compared to the old one. But then again my insanely fast internet makes up for most of it so I dont care

I hope they stick it to Viacom on this one and I should probably email them about it.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

We haven't launched Navigator here yet (thank god) but it's only like a month away.

As for why it took a VP, beats me, it's policy here that we collect CODs for 1st month on every install, so unsure why the CSR wouldn't have notified you of that. The trap that you had on your line shouldn't fail and there is no conspiracy that makes it fail every so often, but I know you were just kidding around on that. Our billing system is extremely complex, so much so that I do everything I can to stay away from it, and I'm a smart guy that understands things easily. As for running a line, what did you expect them to do beam it to you wirelessly?

Well, this was a free trial to get me to switch from satellite, so there wasn't supposed to be any out-of-pocket cash, including any COD. After 60 days I could hand in the box and walk away. From what the tech said, she just forgot a notation on the form that indicated I didn't need the COD.

The trap has failed once already, and the RoadRunner tech said he HATED them, as they fail every couple of years and he is always replacing them to get internet / phone service restored to folks who don't also have TV. When he came out and I described the issues we were having, he went right out and swapped it without even trying anything else first, and everything cleared up immediately.

I think you misunderstood the line part: I knew I needed a line run to the TV, but the rep forgot to mark that down, and the tech wanted to charge me for it. Again, I was up front on what I needed if they wanted me to take advantage of this free trial, and she forgot to pass all that along to the tech who was to come out and set it up.

[gstelmack]

Oh, and to be fair, I could talk about the DirecTV installer who decided he couldn't figure out where to drill to run a line through out of my crawlspace, so he ran it through one of my crawlspace vents, preventing me from ever closing it. Had to get him to come back out and fix that...

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

Do you realize that if cable companies had to give access over their wires to competing cable companies the # of channels you get would be significantly reduced? This is because every cable company out there is already using all of the frequency spectrum that their cable plant can push, having another cable company on the same lines would require double the amount of bandwidth. Of course I'm speaking from my knowledge and I'm not familiar with any neighborhoods that have competing cable companies. If it was possible to have competition without more cables running through my city I'd be all for it, I'm fine with more competition, because that means there is also competition for my services...

Do you realize that it has been that way for years in NY? Adelphia didn't have their own wires, same thing goes for Verizon and internet access w/wires.

It is certainly possible to have competing services over the same wires as the content being pushed thru those wires doesn't come near capacity for the majority of areas.

[Chubby]

Just to clarify -

I don't really have an axe to grind with TW. I have always gotten good service from them and outside of the intital RR install (2000ish when my neighborhood near SU was the 1st in CNY to get RR) I have nary had a problem. My beef with them has beenin the grand scheme things (like this with Viacom, f'ing with buffalo folks and bills games, horrible CS when I do need to call them sometimes, NFL network) along with the no competition. Not having competition breeds this crap and while it's not that bad in CNY I'm sure it is in other areas.

[Tekneek]

I think Viacom is asking for too much. Perhaps TWC should offer a Viacom package, put all of their channels in it, and charge exactly what Viacom wants per subscriber for it. Of course, Viacom would not likely accept that at all. They probably want it forced onto everybody with service.

[kcchief19]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

Hehe. I'm hoping things get solved, but from what I'm hearing Viacom is not going an offer an extension and it's looking like the customers and Time Warner Cable customer service reps are the ones that are going to get caught in the crossfire, since it's not like customers are going to call Viacom.

Unless TWC puts a screen on every single channel that says Viacom has taken away this channel and here's the number to call to raise all holy hell. At that point, TWC is in charge because who's going to go finding the number for TWC when they have given me Viacom's number on screen?

Originally Posted by DanGarion

From a cable companies standpoint they own the cable wires that run through your neighborhood.

Tell that to AT&T. 25 years ago not a single company other than AT&T owned any phone lines connecting subscribers -- then the courts said it was an illegal monopoly, broke them up and required AT&T to provide essentially free access to anyone who wanted to sell long distance to AT&T's lines, including their central offices. AT&T had to pay to upgrade their central offices to accommodate all the companies that needed access. Bottom line -- there's a precedent for this, and the cable companies would be wise to not force the hand of the courts or Congress.

Originally Posted by DanGarion

Of course lots of it comes down to cities, counties, and states that have signed exclusive franchise agreements with utility companies (water, gas, electricity, cable, phone, etc), and everyone is at fault for that.

Again, pretty much irrelevant. If the courts rule that the cable companies have a monopoly, the franchise agreements are out the window. It doesn't matter that the city has an agreement (AT&T had exclusive agreements with states too), ultimately the antitrust issue is that individual consumers are having a utility thrust upon them without choice.

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by Tekneek

I think Viacom is asking for too much. Perhaps TWC should offer a Viacom package, put all of their channels in it, and charge exactly what Viacom wants per subscriber for it. Of course, Viacom would not likely accept that at all. They probably want it forced onto everybody with service.

a la carte is something the cable companies steadfastly refuse to go to

[Raiders Army]

Time-Warner told me they didn't own the lines and the city needed to upgrade the lines in order for me to get TV signals/internet/phone. Maybe things are different in L.A.

We've lived in three different places (an hour North of NYC, El Paso, and now Cache, OK) and Time-Warner was the "provider" in two of them. We definitely weren't happy with them in El Paso. In NY, they weren't so bad.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by Chubby

Do you realize that it has been that way for years in NY? Adelphia didn't have their own wires, same thing goes for Verizon and internet access w/wires.

It is certainly possible to have competing services over the same wires as the content being pushed thru those wires doesn't come near capacity for the majority of areas.

Are you talking about the wires that drop to the house, or the main trunks/feeds that feed the neighborhoods? Wasn't aware of areas that are that way, I'm only familiar with overbuilders that run their own trunk/feed lines in neighborhoods that we service.

Crazy we push content from 21 Mhz all the way to 1 Gig and nearly all the spectrum is used for channels. But then we also waste some of the bandwidth on channels being on multiple QAM frequencies for god knows what reason, not to mention that we still push analog content which really wastes bandwidth, but keeps people happy that don't have cable boxes or a QAM tuner.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Well, this was a free trial to get me to switch from satellite, so there wasn't supposed to be any out-of-pocket cash, including any COD. After 60 days I could hand in the box and walk away. From what the tech said, she just forgot a notation on the form that indicated I didn't need the COD.

The trap has failed once already, and the RoadRunner tech said he HATED them, as they fail every couple of years and he is always replacing them to get internet / phone service restored to folks who don't also have TV. When he came out and I described the issues we were having, he went right out and swapped it without even trying anything else first, and everything cleared up immediately.

I think you misunderstood the line part: I knew I needed a line run to the TV, but the rep forgot to mark that down, and the tech wanted to charge me for it. Again, I was up front on what I needed if they wanted me to take advantage of this free trial, and she forgot to pass all that along to the tech who was to come out and set it up.

Nice incompetency on the CSR. Can't say I haven't seen that happen time and time again.

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

Are you talking about the wires that drop to the house, or the main trunks/feeds that feed the neighborhoods? Wasn't aware of areas that are that way, I'm only familiar with overbuilders that run their own trunk/feed lines in neighborhoods that we service.

Crazy we push content from 21 Mhz all the way to 1 Gig and nearly all the spectrum is used for channels. But then we also waste some of the bandwidth on channels being on multiple QAM frequencies for god knows what reason, not to mention that we still push analog content which really wastes bandwidth, but keeps people happy that don't have cable boxes or a QAM tuner.

I'm almost positive it was a shared use of main cables and house lines.

Yah, now I couldn't tell you how much bandwith Adelphia took up or how much TW uses now (% of capacity) but I know they aren't using everything.

My beefs would also apply to Crapcast or any other big cable provider, it just happens to be TW here.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by Chubby

a la carte is something the cable companies steadfastly refuse to go to

I'm split on a la carte. I see the logistical nightmare it can cause for a company by customers that want to constantly change the channels they have.

Plus I think that we would end up having many less channels if a la carte became status quo because those channels that less people watch wouldn't be given support by being included in packages.

The only way I could see this work on the cable company side is that if we allowed a la carte we would also have to have stipulations on fees for changing channels, as well as 1 month minimum subscriptions. Because it would be a nightmare to have the penny pinching type people that would call every day, or even every couple hours to change the channels included in their lineup so they could pay the least possible amount.

Maybe the industry should look into a pay for use concept, like they want to do for Internet... Where if you watch a channel you are charged a certain amount based on the length of time you watched it...

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by Raiders Army

Time-Warner told me they didn't own the lines and the city needed to upgrade the lines in order for me to get TV signals/internet/phone. Maybe things are different in L.A.

We've lived in three different places (an hour North of NYC, El Paso, and now Cache, OK) and Time-Warner was the "provider" in two of them. We definitely weren't happy with them in El Paso. In NY, they weren't so bad.

Heh, was this joe CS tech or someone with actual knowledge tho It's certainly possible they don't own the lines but I'd take it with a grain of salt too

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

I'm split on a la carte. I see the logistical nightmare it can cause for a company by customers that want to constantly change the channels they have.

DirecTV has an awesome website where you can change your packages very easily.

They did have to implement a rule about not dropping a channel until X amount of time has passed from when you added it to deal with people adding HBO for a day once every week just to record the Sopranos, but that was the only real issue with it.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by Tekneek

I think Viacom is asking for too much. Perhaps TWC should offer a Viacom package, put all of their channels in it, and charge exactly what Viacom wants per subscriber for it. Of course, Viacom would not likely accept that at all. They probably want it forced onto everybody with service.

I agree with you on this. Lots of content makers are getting demanding with their pricing when only a minority of people on the cableco really want it. NFL Network got burned by this. Heck, my kids have mostly gone past Dora and Diego and watch mostly Sprout, Qubo (on NBC), and Disney channel (plus DVDs which are the most popular) so there is not a single channel in that Viacom list I'll miss.

It also puts a dent in the whole "you get TV for free so you must watch our advertising" argument being used against various fastforward / rewind features on DVRs, since they are getting a chunk of money per customer, not just per viewer.

OTOH, the cable companies haven't been shy about raising rates either, have been slow to roll out HD, and are gouging me on things like "DVR fees" that are unrelated to channel costs and claiming "free HD" by charging me an arm and a leg for the converter box instead of charging me for the HD, so there are no saints in this battle.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

OTOH, the cable companies haven't been shy about raising rates either, have been slow to roll out HD, and are gouging me on things like "DVR fees" that are unrelated to channel costs and claiming "free HD" by charging me an arm and a leg for the converter box instead of charging me for the HD, so there are no saints in this battle.

I'm 100% with you on that, I honestly can't even answer what all the charges are for. We are raising our rates this year, but it was inevitable due to rising costs. I still only have 20 HD channels where I'm at, but part of that is because it costs a lot to upgrade the cable plant, costs associated with the equipment that sends the signal all the way down to upgrading the nodes, amps, etc for the increased range of frequencies we will be using. Then on top of that running into various issues with the plant after the upgrade is done. I was supposed to get another 20 channels last month but I'm still waiting.

I'm only going to try and explain what the fees could possibly be for. DVR Fees of course would be, um well it's a service and other companies charge it so we should be able to as well (other companies being Tivo).

The HD converter box is more expensive, and it's more expensive to maintain and repair once they come back from a customers home.

My experience with equipment is that a lot of the stuff is crap and faulty, but I honestly blame most of that on the manufactures, so as a consumer you are pretty lucky there really aren't any full fledged consumer digital cable boxes or digital cable DVR boxes on the market yet (I don't consider Tivo a digital cable box because you can't get the cable companies guide and you have to pay Tivo for their service). Someday Scientific Atlanta and Motorola will get their act together. We swap out boxes a lot and we wouldn't be able to swap a customers owned box.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by Tekneek

I think Viacom is asking for too much. Perhaps TWC should offer a Viacom package, put all of their channels in it, and charge exactly what Viacom wants per subscriber for it. Of course, Viacom would not likely accept that at all. They probably want it forced onto everybody with service.

I can tell you with a great degree of certainty that this is the case.

They would never agree to such terms, and in fact are one of the biggest opponents to a-la-carte programming. They are the biggest example of a company that has 3-4 solid networks and then "forces" cable companies to offer the remaining 20 that nobody watches by making outrageous price demands for offerring only their flagship services.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

OTOH, the cable companies haven't been shy about raising rates either, have been slow to roll out HD, and are gouging me on things like "DVR fees" that are unrelated to channel costs and claiming "free HD" by charging me an arm and a leg for the converter box instead of charging me for the HD, so there are no saints in this battle.

I can tell you why they do this.

An HD-DVR box is basically a computer, both in price, and in required functionality by the FCC(i.e. it must support 1394...even though nobody uses it). These boxes cost (and remember the volumes we're talking here) $400-$600 each. At $10/mo it would take at least 4 years just to make your money back for the box. More likely...you'll need to buy a new box within 4 years(or closer to 3 depending on newest must-have features and hopefully it doesnt just "die" in 2 years since the manuf wont buy it back). And none of this accounts for the cost of transporting, warehousing, testing, (potentially)replacing, etc.

The FCC also does not allow cable companies(or any MSO), to charge any higher than $9/mo (could be $12, I forget ATM). So when they charge you for these silly fees and the like...they are doing so to compensate for not being allowed to recoup in a more straightforward manner. Right, wrong, or indifferent...these types of nonsensical regulations just lead to higher customer confusion about their bills (and the phone companies have similar legacy-issues for much of their own silly charges and fees). Again...corporations do not "eat" costs...they just find other ways to pass them on. Might not like it, but this isnt the only industry doing that.

On the Viacom point...as much as I would love to see them get a deal worked out...it just doesnt make any sense to start raising rates significantly just for Viacom as it sets a precedant for every other companies' negotiations. I think those of you pointing to TWC having issues with NFL, CBS, ABC, and the like in the past should realize that these companies have been wildly more successful than TWC for years and years. Cable companies' only leverage to keep rates down was their "monopolistic" nature(though I can tell you it is perfectly "legal" to go start your own cable co and start applying for franchise licenses, r-o-way permits, etc...it's just God-awfully expensive to do such a thing).

Hate to sound like a cable co spokesman(I am a cable co employee), but like Dan, I've seen these issues from many sides and can tell you this would be the equivalency of EA offerring Madden for $160 tomorrow. Even if you "could" afford it...would you really want to encourage every other company to do the same?

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by Chubby

I'm almost positive it was a shared use of main cables and house lines.

Yah, now I couldn't tell you how much bandwith Adelphia took up or how much TW uses now (% of capacity) but I know they aren't using everything.

My beefs would also apply to Crapcast or any other big cable provider, it just happens to be TW here.

I dont think anybody would be sharing "cables" per se which run from pole-to-pole(though sometimes companies lease fibers from each other, but thats different).

I imagine you may have seen an apartment/townhome area which as a homerun option for each unit to take competing companies...or you were in an exclusive development(doesnt have to be overly fancy, but likely newish) that overbuilt for this purpose.

But it isnt possible for cable companies to literally share the hardline coax which acts as a trunk to feed and branch off to individual homes.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Hoo, boy. If Noggin goes off the air, my 2 year old daughter would peddle her tricycle to the Time Warner offices and beat someone to death with a stuffed animal.

Would this be...Quadola??

My 2-yr old son will be doing the same thing tomorrow morning. He's gonna be pissed.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by SteveMax58

I can tell you why they do this.

An HD-DVR box is basically a computer, both in price, and in required functionality by the FCC(i.e. it must support 1394...even though nobody uses it). These boxes cost (and remember the volumes we're talking here) $400-$600 each. At $10/mo it would take at least 4 years just to make your money back for the box. More likely...you'll need to buy a new box within 4 years(or closer to 3 depending on newest must-have features and hopefully it doesnt just "die" in 2 years since the manuf wont buy it back). And none of this accounts for the cost of transporting, warehousing, testing, (potentially)replacing, etc.

I get all of that. Just surprised it went up 25%. They are the ones obsoleting their boxes on a regular basis, and as pointed out they break down like mad. Plus they ship these tiny hard drives in them to keep them as cheap as possible.

Surprised they run $400-$600 apiece though, given that they have far less horsepower than say an Xbox 360.

As for the 1394 feature, the reason people don't use most of those features is because they typically don't work. Go check out the Navigator AVS forum for how well the eSATA connection works, let alone folks that really want the 1394 for streaming to a PC that never seems to function. We can also discuss the CableCard feature that was supposed to let folks buy their own DVR (such as a TIVO) that they obsoleted as fast as they could.

[Tekneek]

Originally Posted by Chubby

a la carte is something the cable companies steadfastly refuse to go to

The providers don't like it either. That's why they force carriage in specific packages in their contracts much of the time.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

I get all of that. Just surprised it went up 25%. They are the ones obsoleting their boxes on a regular basis, and as pointed out they break down like mad. Plus they ship these tiny hard drives in them to keep them as cheap as possible.

Surprised they run $400-$600 apiece though, given that they have far less horsepower than say an Xbox 360.

As for the 1394 feature, the reason people don't use most of those features is because they typically don't work. Go check out the Navigator AVS forum for how well the eSATA connection works, let alone folks that really want the 1394 for streaming to a PC that never seems to function. We can also discuss the CableCard feature that was supposed to let folks buy their own DVR (such as a TIVO) that they obsoleted as fast as they could.

160 GB hard drive in a DVR up until recently was pretty robust that would record 60 hours of digital cable content, unfortunately it only records 20 hours of HD content.

The Xbox 360 price is subsidized by game, accessories sales as well as licensing. I'm going to take the word they in your whole post as a conglomerate of cable companies, hardware companies, MPAA, FCC, and the publics demands, since I think they all have some blame in most of the obsolescence.

[Subby]

I <3 FiOS.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

I get all of that. Just surprised it went up 25%. They are the ones obsoleting their boxes on a regular basis, and as pointed out they break down like mad. Plus they ship these tiny hard drives in them to keep them as cheap as possible.

But the problem is that they are forced to obsolete the boxes and move to an open, seperable security platform. All cable companies are doing this slowly but surely. It's part of the new True2Way initiative mandated by the FCC. They(the FCC) believe it is in consumers' interests to have the ability to go to Best Buy and get a box off the shelf and keep it. As a developer you may be interested in looking into it more as you could, in theory, develop apps for cable boxes...OpenCable and OCAP (tru2way) CENTER | OCAP/EBIF Developer Network will have some useful info if interested.

As a side note...I can tell you from first hand knowledge that cable companies would be happy to not have to plan, project, buy, warehouse, and be held hostage by the big 2 manufacturers of cable boxes ever again. I'm not sold on it being best for consumers, honestly, but choices are choices, and I am for that.

Surprised they run $400-$600 apiece though, given that they have far less horsepower than say an Xbox 360.

Yeah, thats more of the top of the line HD-DVR with multiple tuners, etc. models. The functionalities that are costly are the HD decoding and tuners, myriads of conversion boards and the like. But as an example...that 1394 option adds about $25 per box. So...you can do some easy math and see the relative cost for such features.

As for the 1394 feature, the reason people don't use most of those features is because they typically don't work. Go check out the Navigator AVS forum for how well the eSATA connection works, let alone folks that really want the 1394 for streaming to a PC that never seems to function. We can also discuss the CableCard feature that was supposed to let folks buy their own DVR (such as a TIVO) that they obsoleted as fast as they could.

I cant speak to the specifics of the 1394 feature working or not working in certain circumstances as their are (intentional) limitations to what can be sent to a PC and what cannot(and these are generally dictated by the broadcasters, like Viacom). I'll have to shoot over there and see what kinds of problems people are seeing.

As far as CableCard, it will allow TiVO interop soon, but as noted above, compatibility is not quite good enough yet. There is a new rev on the way, from my understanding, that specifically addresses it. TiVO is a big, big priority in cable co's these days.

Navigator had a ton of bugs that should have been caught before releasing it to the public(in my view). It is 1000% better today than upon release (which may not be saying much if you believe it sucked completely upon release). It is constantly being developed though, and will continue to improve over the coming months.

Not trying to sell you(or anybody) on cable co's at all. They have their faults and aggravate me as well. But I do think they sometimes get blamed for things that they really cant win with. They can hike rates and keep Viacom going, then they get blamed for being greedy and raising rates. They let Viacom go off the air, and they get blamed for being greedy yet again.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by Subby

I <3 FiOS.

Thanks!!

I played a pretty key role in getting that picture nice and pretty for ya!

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by SteveMax58

Thanks!!

I played a pretty key role in getting that picture nice and pretty for ya!

BOO! J/K

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

Do you realize that if cable companies had to give access over their wires to competing cable companies the # of channels you get would be significantly reduced? This is because every cable company out there is already using all of the frequency spectrum that their cable plant can push, having another cable company on the same lines would require double the amount of bandwidth. Of course I'm speaking from my knowledge and I'm not familiar with any neighborhoods that have competing cable companies. If it was possible to have competition without more cables running through my city I'd be all for it, I'm fine with more competition, because that means there is also competition for my services...

Lets be honest here, the infrastructure problem with the cable companies is in part fault of their own. They have received massive amounts of tax credits and funding to build out the infrastructure in the U.S. They have failed miserably at doing so. I guess fail may not be the best word considering they did pocket a lot of that money for themselves.

And other attempts to build out the infrastructure have been thwarted by many of the cable companies who like hanging on to their little monopoly.

In the end, Time Warner fights to keep their monopoly anyway they can. Therefore they deserve the brunt of any blame. When you actively hire family members of politicians and bribe them to keep out competitors, you can't sit back and cry when people are upset with your services. Other countries have no problem providing better services at a fraction of the cost.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

BOO! J/K

Hehe...I'm back with the "good guys" now though!! That counts, doesnt it??

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Subby

I <3 FiOS.

Agreed. That said, Verizon has god-awful land-line phone service here. It fails to connect and disconnects more than my cell phone.

SI

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Lets be honest here, the infrastructure problem with the cable companies is in part fault of their own. They have received massive amounts of tax credits and funding to build out the infrastructure in the U.S. They have failed miserably at doing so. I guess fail may not be the best word considering they did pocket a lot of that money for themselves.

And other attempts to build out the infrastructure have been thwarted by many of the cable companies who like hanging on to their little monopoly.

In the end, Time Warner fights to keep their monopoly anyway they can. Therefore they deserve the brunt of any blame. When you actively hire family members of politicians and bribe them to keep out competitors, you can't sit back and cry when people are upset with your services. Other countries have no problem providing better services at a fraction of the cost.

Can't really say anything on the first part since I don't know how a public company can pocket tax credits since they have to show their books to the public, but you evidentially know more then I do. Unless you are talking about Adelphia, who had people committing fraud which I don't support no matter who they are.

But as for the last comment regarding better services at a fraction of the cost, you could say that about many sectors in the US, and although the companies might push for it, it's our own government that allows it, who we all put in office.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by SteveMax58

Hehe...I'm back with the "good guys" now though!! That counts, doesnt it??

Eh, none of them are good guys really, except for the fact that they pay us when payday comes around.

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

Can't really say anything on the first part since I don't know how a public company can pocket tax credits since they have to show their books to the public, but you evidentially know more then I do. Unless you are talking about Adelphia, who had people committing fraud which I don't support no matter who they are.

But as for the last comment regarding better services at a fraction of the cost, you could say that about many sectors in the US, and although the companies might push for it, it's our own government that allows it, who we all put in office.

That's all well and good (that the govt allows it) but that doesn't just wash the dirty hands clean...

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Chubby

a la carte is something the cable companies steadfastly refuse to go to

My biggest issue with a la carte is that it might completely eliminate a lot of smaller channels that are not popular. Take Discovery for instance. They have a lot of channels like the Discovery Channel, TLC, and Animal Planet. I really enjoy the Science Channel that they have. But it's probably not a channel that would have big subscribers and thus might simply get thrown in the dumpster by the company.

I think an a la carte system would just benefit the bigger stations more like ESPN. As someone who tends to watch a lot of the smaller networks like Bio, Science, etc, I'd be worried about losing them.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

Can't really say anything on the first part since I don't know how a public company can pocket tax credits since they have to show their books to the public, but you evidentially know more then I do. Unless you are talking about Adelphia, who had people committing fraud which I don't support no matter who they are.

But as for the last comment regarding better services at a fraction of the cost, you could say that about many sectors in the US, and although the companies might push for it, it's our own government that allows it, who we all put in office.

Telcos Lay $200 Billion Goose Egg | WebProNews
I, Cringely . The Pulpit . The $200 Billion Rip-Off | PBS

There are tons of other stories about this. It is fraud and they should be held accountable. But those companies own our politicians, so there is not much we can do. These companies have been getting credits and charging customers for infrastructure developments that never happen.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Lets be honest here, the infrastructure problem with the cable companies is in part fault of their own. They have received massive amounts of tax credits and funding to build out the infrastructure in the U.S. They have failed miserably at doing so. I guess fail may not be the best word considering they did pocket a lot of that money for themselves.

How do you define "failed"? And I don't mean that sarcastically.

The US as a whole, has the most broadband access in the world. On a per capita basis, we rank #16 in the world.

Why not #1 per capita? Maybe it's because we have a more dispersed living arrangement compared to the rest of the world? It costs quite a fortune to run fiber and even hardline coax per mile (using US labor mind you). So without getting too deep into comparing US geographies and lifestyles, I'd say we are doing exceptionally well as an industry. Sure it would be nice if some of the more rural areas could have access more readily available...but to me, thats a failure on the part of the municipality and/or state not funding their own infrastructure projects and being a bit more innovative with wireless spectrum.

And other attempts to build out the infrastructure have been thwarted by many of the cable companies who like hanging on to their little monopoly.

In the end, Time Warner fights to keep their monopoly anyway they can. Therefore they deserve the brunt of any blame. When you actively hire family members of politicians and bribe them to keep out competitors, you can't sit back and cry when people are upset with your services. Other countries have no problem providing better services at a fraction of the cost.

As far as monopolies go...ALL businesses that have a firm control of a market tend to take protectionist stances. Phone companies did the exact same tactics when it came to cable co's offerring phone and internet services. I agree it's silly, but it happens in every industry.

Other countries? Maybe you are referring to Japan and maybe the UK? I would need to do some research on it, but I can speak first hand in regards to a few countries...and I saw prices for 256k (which is business class in India in 2006) which were higher than US T-1 rates.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

My biggest issue with a la carte is that it might completely eliminate a lot of smaller channels that are not popular. Take Discovery for instance. They have a lot of channels like the Discovery Channel, TLC, and Animal Planet. I really enjoy the Science Channel that they have. But it's probably not a channel that would have big subscribers and thus might simply get thrown in the dumpster by the company.

I think an a la carte system would just benefit the bigger stations more like ESPN. As someone who tends to watch a lot of the smaller networks like Bio, Science, etc, I'd be worried about losing them.

I agree with this analysis...and it's also the position the parent companies of them take.

In general, cable doesnt really care that much, other than the complexity and costs associated with an a-la-carte offerring(which would be substantial given current systems).

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

My biggest issue with a la carte is that it might completely eliminate a lot of smaller channels that are not popular. Take Discovery for instance. They have a lot of channels like the Discovery Channel, TLC, and Animal Planet. I really enjoy the Science Channel that they have. But it's probably not a channel that would have big subscribers and thus might simply get thrown in the dumpster by the company.

I think an a la carte system would just benefit the bigger stations more like ESPN. As someone who tends to watch a lot of the smaller networks like Bio, Science, etc, I'd be worried about losing them.

Agreed on this.

SI

[stevew]

Woke up this morning to laurenw telling me about this. She was all worried til I told her we have Dish and it doesn't matter for us. LeahW would be right behind mbbf's kid on her new rollerskates heading to twc if they cut her access to spongebob.

[JonInMiddleGA]

re: the ala carte thing, just for some frame of reference, here's the 20 most watched networks (by households) for the week ending 12/14.

Primetime
USA (2,258,000)
ESPN
Fox News
ABC Family
TBS
Lifetime
Nick At Nite
TNT
Hallmark
A&E
Cartoon Network (1,111,200)
History
AMC
Spike
Sci Fi
CNN
Discovery
Comedy Central
FX
HGTV
MSNBC
Tru TV
TLC
Food
Headline News (648,000)

Total day numbers are similar, Nick #1 (1,667,000),Nick at Nite climbing to #2, and Adult Swim appearing at #8 replacing HLN. The rest just shuffle a few spots.

[SteveMax58]

I'm surprised to see Hallmark on that list. Must be seasonal programming.